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administrator who knows his way around Government with, however, the present organization and duties of the EPA remaining very much what they are now. And then a second department which would be concerned wholly with enforcement. This also would be run by a generalist under whom there would be four scientific officers for air, land, water and solid waste, each one of whom would have an opposite administration officer and this department should then incorporate all present enforcement agencies. The huge advantage of this would be an immediate rationalization and, for instance, the sort of dichotomy that we have at the moment where the Marine Department without enthusiasm or real expertise is responsible for cleaning the Harbour and USD for cleaning the surrounding land with never the twain meeting, could immediately become one operation which would be far more effective and via rationalization of certain bits of equipment would probably also save money in the long run.
I have no illusions. This suggested reorganization would cost a considerable amount of money but as I have tried to make clear in this speech, this would be money well spent and in the long run would be very cost effective.
Such an organization would be very strong and robust and it would therefore be necessary to make sure that there were checks and balances built into the system and this is where I see the future role of EPCOM. EPCOM should not be an advisory committee. Its role should be to make sure that the wide powers given to the Secretary and its two departments are not abused because it will be most important that there is an even-handed application of environmental regulations for the public good. And what is most important therefore is that EPCOM becomes entirely independent of Government. At the moment its members are more or less independent of Government but its very existence as we have seen recently is subject to the whims of Government and individual civil servants, and this should not be so. I would therefore see EPCOM become a select committee of the Legislative Council with powers to coopt members from outside the membership of that Council.
Hand in hand with everything I have said about this proposed reorganization must go the soonest possible announcement of a solid and broad strategy which must set out in precise objectives the degree to which Government and LEGCO will tolerate the pollution of the environment and the limits of emissions allowable. And these objectives must be spelt out precisely, giving numerical objectives and limits as they will affect the public and industry.
In my view also the Hong Kong Government's approach to pollution, quite apart from being half-hearted, is philosophically quite wrong as it is an entirely negative approach. The Government mostly waits until the pollution happens and then tries to do something about it. What we must do is plan for pollution and we must therefore start at the beginning, which is with education, publicity and propaganda. We must make everyone aware (and not least Government Servants) of the problems we are facing and why we are facing them. I have been preaching this Gospel within the corridors of the Government Secretariat for years and years but no-one is ever willing to allow any kind of money to be
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spent on what would be an expensive and very long-running campaign. I made a suggestion some time ago, which was approved by SCAP and forwarded as a recommendation to EPCOM and then lost in the reorganization mentioned previously, that there should be a special environmental education and publicity body to propagate this philosophy and who should include inter alia representatives of the Secretaries of Health & Welfare, Education, and Transport, representatives from GIS as well as from Government bodies normally concerned with cleaning up the environment, such as USD and the Marine Department. In addition, there should be unofficial members to represent academic and technical institutions, the media (preferably one from the newspapers and one from T.V.) and a representative from the professional advertising/PR world. This working body should have a sufficient budget to draw on to make decisions taken effective. I believe such money spent on education, advertising, and propaganda (in its best sense) would be an excellent investment in our future.
The best and cheapest way of stopping pollution is at source. And as I said already, one way to do this is by education, advertising and some enforcement. Another way of doing it is by positive encouragement. If I were in charge then I would long ago have given tax incentives and tax rebates to all those polluters who do something about preventing their pollution at source. In Government building contracts, I would have paid bonuses for the use of silent and quiet equipment. I would have made special tax allowances when anyone in the construction industry replaced noisy equipment with silenced equipment. Similarly, I would have given financial encouragement to anyone who stopped their effluent going into our New Territory rivers and would have allowed special tax holidays for factories installing special equipment preventing chemical sewer or water pollution. The objection to these suggestions (suggestions which were made long ago and resurrected by me every now and then over the last ten years), have always been that it would cost the Government money and also create a privileged class of tax payers. I am sure that in the long run my suggestions are cost-effective because obviously if you prevent a mess it is cheaper than having to clear it up afterwards. In industry, this sort of statement cannot always be quantified because, with air pollution especially, such costs are hidden. One must look for these costs in working days lost to trade and industry because of sickness and more hospital beds becoming necessary. In the last analysis quantifying quality of life is always extremely difficult, but there is no doubt that the happier people are the more productive they become.
Obviously not all pollution control and prevention can be left to Government. Every resident of Hong Kong has to play his or her part and foremost in this must be the industrialists. I am glad to say that the Hong Kong Productivity Council is beginning to lead the way and thinking about how to make manufacturing processes more efficient thereby less polluting as very often these two go hand in hand. When we first pushed Government into declaring the whole of Hong Kong and Kowloon a clear air zone some dozen years or so